


Non Sequitur

by CoffeeFairy



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Alternate Universe, Episode: s02e05 Non Sequitur, M/M, idiots to lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2020-02-26 19:12:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18723208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CoffeeFairy/pseuds/CoffeeFairy
Summary: Alternative take on Non Sequitur. Harry wakes up to find himself in an alternate timeline where he's together with Tom Paris.





	Non Sequitur

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, I'm sure someone has done this before but it seemed like too fun a possibility to play around with so I'm adding my take! First attempt at Star Trek fic so if you spot any mistakes, please let me know :)

_"Voyager to shuttlecraft Drake. Prepare for emergency transport. Mr Kim, can you hear me? We’re attempting to lock on to you. Harry?”_

 

He could feel sunshine on his skin. Warm and bright, spilling over him and he smiled. The sensation reminded him of his boyhood room at home where the bed had been placed so the sun would rise to wake him. Relishing the sensation, he only sighed a little when the alarm went off. Rolling to his side, he mumbled,

 

“Computer, turn off the alarm.”

 

Nothing happened and he repeated the request. Cracking an eye open he blinked. He was staring at an alarm clock, showing 07:41. Automatically he reached out and turned it off. He’d had an alarm just like it growing up. Blinking, he looked around and tensed. Wherever he was, it wasn’t his quarters on Voyager. He was in what looked like a studio apartment. The bed stood below some large picture windows and on the other side of the large room was a sitting area. To the right was a small kitchenette. Cozily furnished, it was nothing fancy but felt homey. And it was a far shout from his small quarters on Voyager. Straining his memory he tried to place the last thing he remembered. He’d been on the shuttle, reading some subspace variations when-

 

“Just five more minutes, Harry,” a sleep-clouded voice spoke behind him and an arm snaked around his waist. 

 

Shocked, Harry looked down. A tanned, freckled arm rested easily over his midriff. Trailing his eyes over the limb, following it to lean biceps and a wide shoulder, his eyes widened. What on earth was going on? Turning in the bed so he could see, a little gasp escaped him. Next to him in the double bed was his best friend and conn officer of Voyager, Tom Paris. Burrowed into the pillows, blonde hair unruly and a night’s worth of stubble covering his jaw, he looked very much at home. 

 

“Tom?” Harry squeaked. 

 

“Just five more minutes, Har.”

 

Shaking his friend by the shoulder, the other man grumbled. “Fine, fine, I’m getting up. Spoilsport.” 

 

The blond man sat up in bed and the sheet fell to reveal he wasn’t wearing any pyjamas. Or anything else, it seemed. Of course Tom Paris wouldn’t care if there was a red alert and he had to run out into the hall still hopping into some pyjama bottoms. 

 

“Tom, what the hell is going on?”

 

Sleepily, the other man stifled a yawn. Then his blue eyes cleared and he blinked. A smile Harry had never seen him wear before slid over his features. One full of open tenderness and warmth. 

 

“Of course, your meeting’s today. Are you freaking out?”

 

“Meeting?” Harry echoed weakly.

 

Tom peered past him at clock. “Harry! What are you still doing in bed? It’s 7:45! Get into the shower, go on.” The other man was out the bed in a flash. “I’ll replicate you something you can eat on the way, now scoot!”

 

Harry could only gape as he watched his friend walk buck naked into the kitchen area. He looked away quickly, a bright blush washing over his cheeks. Springing from the mattress like he’d been burnt, he caught sight of the view outside. Taking a step back, he blinked. Shook his head. But the view stayed the same. The large windows the sun was streaming in from showed the unmistakable landscape of the San Francisco Bay. 

 

Before he could press his nose to the window, Tom barked,

 

“Harry, shower!”

 

Afraid the other man would chase after him otherwise, naked or not, Harry slipped into the bathroom. It was a fairly small room that he was sure he had never been in, but the uniform hanging tidily on the back of the door was his size and had his service number on the label under the collar. Staring at his reflection in the mirror he couldn’t see that he looked any different, not like he’d missed some years, not with any obvious differences to prove this wasn’t really him. Then what the hell was happening? Why was he in San Francisco, why was Tom Paris sleeping naked in his bed and what meeting did he have today that was so important? In short, what the hell was going on?

 

Getting into the shower as whatever was happening seemed to revolve around this, he sighed.

 

The door to the bathroom clicked open and Harry tensed. 

 

“I brought you coffee,” Tom said from the other side of the shower curtain. A cup was put down on a shelf handily placed just out of reach from the water splashing from the shower but close enough he could reach it to drink. That was really handy. He should think about getting that for his quarters.

 

Poking his head past the shower curtain, he was relieved to see Tom had put on boxers and an ancient t-shirt spelling Pendleton High School. 

 

“What’s today’s date?”

 

“Harry, your meeting is today, as you well know. It’s going to be stardate 49011 the next time you ask too.”

 

“But that’s...That’s today.” The day was right. He hadn’t lost any time. How was any of this possible?

 

Tom’s eyes, usually well shielded and hiding whatever he was really thinking under an easy jocularity, clouded over with worry. 

 

“Harry, what’s going on with you today? Are you really okay?” The blond man reached out to touch his cheek and Harry almost stumbled back. “Is it just nerves?” 

 

The smile that dawned on his face was one he did know, although it had never before been directed at him. “Cause I know a good trick for nerves.”

 

Then before Harry had a chance to protest Tom had pulled off his shirt and underwear and climbed into shower with him. Jerking back, almost slipping, Tom’s hands shot out to catch him. 

 

“Easy, there. Now just let me take care of those nerves for you.” With a wink, he sank to his knees in front of Harry. 

 

_Oh._

 

The realisation dawned. This clearly was not Tom Paris, pilot of Voyager and Harry’s best friend. Whoever this was, in whatever world he was, this Tom Paris was Harry’s boyfriend. 

 

“No!” Before Tom could put his intentions into action, Harry jumped out of the way, escaping the shower. “I...I mean, no. Thanks. I’m good.”

 

“Harry?” The now soaked Tom stood and wiped water from his eyes, the look in them wondering. 

 

“I...I have to go.”

 

He had to find out what was happening. Backing toward the door, he turned and fled, grabbing his uniform on the way. 

 

Stumbling out of the building, his hair still wet and his uniform sticking uncomfortably to him in places, he looked around the street. It was vaguely familiar - he’d been in quarters nearby while he was at the Academy. If nothing much had changed since then, he was a few blocks from the school, a few more from Starfleet HQ. Maybe there was someone who could explain whatever temporal anomaly was occurring there. 

 

Steering down the street, someone called his name. Surprised he turned to find a jovial looking man with gray hair and a tanned face beaming at him. Dressed in easy clothes with a white apron tied around his sturdy middle, he waved for him to approach. Cautiously, Harry did. 

 

“Harry! I’ve got your coffee ready. Un minuto.”

 

The man dashed into the café behind him and returned with a carry cup. “Here you go, just as you like it.”

 

“Ah...thank you.”

 

“Not at all. So today’s the big day, eh? The meeting?”

 

“I…”

 

“It’s going to be fine. Once it’s approved I want a model for my window. I’ll hang it and tell everyone, _““That’s Harry Kim’s work, my best customer and the best engineer in Starfleet!”_ Eh?” Elbowing him in the side, the man chuckled, gesturing to the window like he’d be putting up a billboard in shining letters.

 

“A model?” Out of the stream of everything he didn’t understand, he picked at random.

 

“Yes, of course. A model of the first new shuttle design in the Federation in forty years!”

 

“So...you know me?” 

 

The date was the same, he looked the same but he had no recollection of him returning to Earth, of designing any new shuttle. Or of this jolly man who appeared to know his life better than him. 

 

“Know you? You’ve been coming here every day since you graduated the Academy.”

 

“Which was…?”

 

“Eight months ago.”

 

“You’ve seen me every day for eight months?”

 

As he’d been posted directly to Voyager when he graduated, that was impossible. 

 

“Well, not _every_ day.” Cosimo put his hands on his hips and grinned. “On Sundays you like to sleep late. And with a fiancee like yours, who can blame you!” He chuckled and winked.

 

“My fiancee?”

 

Was Libby here? Why hadn’t he seen her?

 

“Tom Paris? Tall, handsome, Starfleet pilot? Reformed heartbreaker and the reason why half of the Academy hate you - for taking him off the market!” The chuckle this time was longer. 

 

“I’m _marrying_ Tom Paris?” What in the actual world was happening? And what kind of idiot did you have to be to try and marry Tom?

 

“Don’t worry, Harry. I had the same feelings when I was about to marry Martha. Woke up and couldn’t believe it. It passes, you’ll see.”

 

“I-what?”

 

Before he had time to process this, yet another person called his name. A man he had never seen approached him.

 

“Harry, there you are. We have to go, the meeting starts in twenty minutes.”

 

Torn between running away and laughing hysterically, Harry let the unknown man pull him away from the jolly coffee man. 

 

Twenty-two minutes later he was sitting in a meeting room, all eyes on him to explain how he’d found a way around the dilithium fracture problem. He had no idea. Whoever he was meant to be had to be a lot smarter than him because he wouldn’t even know how to begin solving that issue. It had been considered impossible for the last forty years. 

 

“..are you unwell, Ensign?”

 

The voice of the commander filtered into his mind. He looked up, not knowing what else to do.

 

“Yes. Yes, I’m ill.”

 

Allowed to leave, he found his office by asking around - to the response of a lot of confused looks and awkward laughs - and entered. Slamming the door shut, he locked it and drew a deep breath. He was on thin ice. If this was another timeline there was no telling how bad the effects of his lapses today would be? He had to find out what was going on. 

 

It was a large room by Ensign standards, with a view of the Bay - if you leaned to the side a bit and turned your head. It had a large schematics board as well as a desk. Sitting down at the desk, he stared for a moment at the picture. It was of him and Tom and the blond man was standing behind him, his arms wrapped around his shoulders. They were both grinning. 

 

Tearing his eyes from it, he asked out loud, “Computer, where is the U.S.S Voyager?”

 

“The U.S.S Voyager has been considered MIA since 48315.6.”

 

The day they’d encountered the Caretaker. So that much was the same. 

 

“Computer, bring up the personnel list of Voyager.”

 

“That information is classified. Security clearance for U.S.S. Voyager operations needed.”

 

“Let’s hope they’re the same here…Authorization Alpha Lambda Kim, 3695847” He entered the digits. The computer rolled up the list and he breathed a sigh of relief.

 

Sitting down at the desk, he quickly scrolled through the names. Under K for Kim, there was no mention of him. “Computer, who is the Operations Officer on Voyager?”

 

A personnel file loaded up as the computer chirped. “Ensign Daniel Byrd.”

 

“Danny? Danny’s on Voyager?” His best friend through the Academy, a cheery, happy-go-lucky guy who’d formed an unlikely friendship with the by-the-book Harry Kim. How had he gotten the post over Harry? His grades had been average but he was a fair engineer and people liked him. Had that been enough?

 

“Bring up my service record.” Scanning over it he blinked. His application to Voyager had been denied. Other than that most was the same. He had graduated in the same year, taken the same classes, gotten the same grades. What stood out was he’d written a paper on warp propulsion. And, under Next of Kin/Emergency Contact, where his mother’s name was written in his real record, was the name Thomas Eugene Paris. 

 

“Computer, show service record of Thomas Eugene Paris.”

 

The machine beeped in response and rolled up a picture of Tom Harry had never seen before. Next to it, words that made him blink - Commander Thomas E. Paris.

 

“Commander?” Leaning closer to the screen, his eyes flying over the lines, he tried to make sense of it. There was no mention of Caldik Prime, the dishonourable discharge or New Zealand. His record wasn’t spotless - if it had been Harry would have suspected alteration - but the infractions were minor. Insubordination, tardiness, backtalk, recklessness and conduct unbecoming. Harry couldn’t help smiling. It did sound like Tom. Calculating in his head, he judged Tom would have joined the Maquis around the time he’d been in his third year of the Academy. The record here seemed to improve from that time. What had happened to this Tom?

 

Getting up from the desk, he paced. However he thought about it, he could only come up with one answer. Somehow, he’d entered an alternate reality. This timeline wasn’t his. 

 

o.O.o

 

“Harry! You’re back early.” The jolly coffee man stopped him once more.

 

“Yes, I...I wasn’t feeling well so I came home early.”

 

“You don’t look sick to me.” The older man peered closely at him before a smile split his face. “Home for a visit with Tom? Don’t worry, I won’t tell.” He shook his head and put his chubby hands to his hips. “Ah, to be young. You remind me of me and my Martha thirty-five years ago.”

 

Harry’s stuttered explanations were waved aside as the man pushed him on his way with a wink.

 

When he opened the door to the apartment he’d had to ask the coffee man - Cosimo - to point out to him, Tom stopped pacing and whirled around. He was dressed in uniform and Harry noticed the three pips fastened to his collar. He really was a Commander. His heart did a funny turn at the thought. 

 

“Harry, there you are! I’ve been so worried! They said you left your meeting sick so I came home and you weren’t here.” He crossed the room quickly and put his hands to Harry’s cheeks. “How do you feel? Is anything hurting?”

 

Tom’s eyes were so blue in the sunlight, Harry forgot to speak for a moment. “I...I’m okay, I’m not sick.” Gently he moved the other man’s hands. “But I need to talk to you.”

 

“You’re scaring me, Harry.”

 

He didn’t think he’d ever heard Tom Paris admit so easily to fear.

 

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to but something is going on.” 

 

The blond man lead him to the bed and pushed him down to sit. Joining him, he put his hand in Harry’s, his fingers drawing soothing circles on the soft skin of his wrist. Or what was meant to be soothing, Harry just felt a slow, warm seethe start in the pit of his stomach. Stilling the fingers by clasping them tighter in his hand, he tried to find the right words. He wasn’t good with words.

 

“I...I don’t really know how to say this. I’m...I’m not from here.”

 

Tom looked like he was trying to make sense of this. “Not from where?”

 

“From here,” Harry gestured to the apartment. “I serve on the U.S.S Voyager.”

 

“Harry, I know you really wanted to Voyager post, and especially today it might seem like being missing in action is better than your meeting but it’s not really something to joke about.”

 

“I’m not joking. I was flying a shuttle back and I must’ve hit a temporal anomaly or something. The next thing I knew I woke up here.”

 

“Are you really sick?” Tom’s free hand rose to check his temperature, cool and dry on his forehead.

 

“I’m not sick! I know it’s hard to believe but I’m not the Harry Kim you know. At least not anymore,” he added quietly. 

 

Tom’s hand slipped from his as he moved back on the bed. The eyes that showed so easily what their owner thought in this universe blemished with dark hurt. 

 

“What are you trying to say? Are you...are you trying to break up with me?”

 

“No!” The word flew out of him. “No, Tom, I’m just…” He reached for his hand again, slipped off the bed to kneel in front of the other man. “I’m not...your Harry. I’m sure he...loves you. But, he’s not me.”

 

“And you don’t love me.” Tom stood, pulling his hand from Harry’s and turned away. His back was ramrod straight and the muscles in his shoulders tense. He’d seen that before and Harry winced. This wasn’t going well.

 

“Of course I love you, you’re my best friend on Voyager. Just not...like that.” he stared at the beautiful line of those shoulders, the proud line of the back of his neck. Liar.

 

“Harry, you’re really confusing me.”

 

“I’m sorry, Tom, I don’t know how else to explain it, or to prove it but you _have_ to trust me. I’m not the Harry from this timeline.”

 

The blond man turned back to him, sank to the floor as well so he could look straight into his eyes. For what seemed like an eternity, he just stared into Harry’s eyes. Like clouds chasing over a summer sky, he could see disbelief, hurt, confusion and dread flash through them. Stared as if he could see into his soul.

 

“I...I believe you, Harry.” He sank down lower. “I don’t see...I don’t see him.”

 

“I’m really sorry, Tom.” 

 

The other man pushed back, turned away once more. Slowly, he stood. 

 

“I’m going to fix this. I’m going to set it all right but I...I need help.”

 

“Will it get him back?”

 

“I...I don’t know. I’m not even sure in which ways this universe is different.”

 

“You love me, for one,” Tom said bitterly. 

 

Harry cringed. 

 

“I need a drink.” Tom steered into the kitchen and poured one. Harry shook his head to the offered one. After a gulp, the other man crossed to the couches and sat. 

 

“So, what is it you need my help with?”

 

Harry rose from the bed, sat across from Tom. “I...was in the service records today. Yours was...different from around two years back as far as I could tell. Was there...Did something special happen around then?”

 

“You could say that.” A small smile played around Tom’s lips. “We met two years ago.”

 

“Oh.” Harry looked down at his hands. “Would...would you mind telling me how? It might be important.”

 

“All right.” Tom squinted at him, sipped his drink. “This is strange, telling you this. You were there.”

 

“I know it must feel like it.”

 

“Right, right.” He rubbed his hands over his face. Leaned back again, staring up at the ceiling. “I was a fairly fresh lieutenant back then, with a bad attitude and much too much self-confidence. Not the good kind. I was cocky, careless and with a massive chip on my shoulder. I was out to prove something to my father, I guess. Pretty sure it would have gotten me in trouble one of those days. Anyway, I used to go to this bar all the Fleeters go to off duty. It’s 21 and over, down by the docks.”

 

“The Nebula.” Harry had never been. 

 

“Yeah, that’s the one. So one night, October 3rd, as it happens -”

 

“My birthday?”

 

“Mhm.” Tom took another sip. “I thought it was just another night. I was there to shoot some pool, have a drink. Then I spotted this guy standing at the bar.” He leaned forward, smiled, resting his elbows on his knees. “Kinda innocent looking, a little uncertain but man, did he fill out a uniform.”

 

Harry blushed and the man across from him grinned.

 

“He was being hustled by this Ferengi trying to sell him some-”

 

“-Lobi rocks,” they spoke together.

 

Tom blinked. “How did you know that?”

 

Harry laughed, “It’s how we met in my universe too!”

 

“I guess some things are the same.”

 

“Sorry, go on.”

 

“Well, I chased the Ferengi off and found out the front more than matched the back of this cute Ensign. My evening was looking up.”

 

“And that was...Harry?”

 

“It sure was.” Tom ran a hand through his hair, leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “So, what I didn’t know at this point was that in an uncharacteristic move, Harry Kim had let himself be talked into celebrating his birthday by “borrowing” a uniform from Starfleet and adding a replicated pip to the collar so they could get into the Nebula. Nobody cards an officer.”

 

“You mean I..he was…?”

 

“A cadet.” Tom laughed, shaking his head. “If I’d had less drinks that evening I would have seen straight through it but...I didn’t. Instead, I strike up conversation with this Ensign. He was...adorable.”

 

Harry winced.

 

Tom smiled. “He doesn’t like when I call him that either. It was just an initial impression. He was like no one I’d met before. So...decent. He just thought the best of people. All people.” Tom sighed lightly. “Also, it hadn’t escaped me he was checking me out, with these quick, shy looks. Like he would never dare ask, but wanted to. So I invited him back to mine.”

 

Turning his head to look out the window, his eyes got farseeing. 

 

“I didn’t know back then how unlike him it was that he said yes. I just counted myself lucky and swept him out. We…”

 

He seemed to catch himself and changed what he was going to say. “I didn’t know it then, perhaps I didn’t want to know, but it was different. He was different.” He took another sip. “Of course I didn’t want to acknowledge that and to my surprise, this tender young thing doesn’t ask for my contact details, doesn’t ask me out, doesn’t ask for anything. Just slips out of my apartment and disappears. I kept trying to tell myself that was exactly what I had wanted. But I couldn’t help but be intrigued.”

 

Harry, captured by the story, watched as Tom’s eyes turned inwards. 

 

“A couple of weeks passed, I went on as usual. I’d never admit it but I’d look around The Nebula for that Ensign. But he never came back. I decided I’d just forget about it. In December my pal was off with the flu and command asked if I’d fill in for him. Jeremy was a flying instructor at the Academy.” 

 

He smiled and Harry held his breath.

 

“I stride in there, cocky as usual, looking forward to wowing these kids with what a real officer can do. I’ve taken three steps inside when I spot a familiar face. The Ensign. In a cadet uniform, no pips in sight.”

 

He chuckled. “You can imagine my surprise.”

 

Harry could picture it too, the cocky fly boy lieutenant he knows, stopping dead in his tracks.

 

“The cadet looks down, blushes to the roots of his hair. When he looks up, I see panic in his eyes. He thinks I’m going to sell him out. I have a mind to just dismiss the class and run away but somehow I get through it. The second the others are gone, I jump on the guy, yelling at him, does he know what he’s done, I could lose my job over this, who does he think he is?”

 

He shakes his head again. “He starts apologising, explaining he never meant for it to go so far, that he was sorry. Then he asks me if I want to do it again, eyes to the floor and blushing so I can almost sense the heat coming off him.”

 

Tom threw back his head with a laugh this time. “I think that’s the moment I fell for him. So I took him up on it.”

 

“You...you had sex at the Academy?” Harry could feel he looked comically surprised. 

 

“Classroom 5C.”

 

Harry knew that room. He’d taken Advanced Flight Sims there in his third year. He could see the shuttle cockpit in the front, the rows of seats, the large screen in the front of the room. Blushing at the thought, Harry shifted in his seat. 

 

“Luckily, though I sure didn’t think so at the time, I got assigned after that. Shipped out to the Exeter. We stayed in touch over comms. By the time I was back, Harry was a real Ensign. And I took him on a real date. That was eight months ago.”

 

Harry smiled, shook his head. “That’s some story.”

 

“So you’re telling me that the me in your universe picked you up in a bar and nothing happened?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Am I blind in your timeline? Stupid?”

 

Harry laughed. “You’re definitely not stupid. I don’t think you’re blind either considering how much you get to...see on Voyager. But I...I have a girlfriend. What makes this really strange is I met her the day after my birthday that year.”

 

“The day after we met.”

 

“Right. Except I didn’t meet you. Danny tried to convince me to go out but I had to study for a test. I went for a coffee the day after and I spotted Libby.”

 

“Libby? That’s her name?”

 

“Yeah.” 

 

Tom was silent for a while. “So now we know where the timeline diverges.”

 

“Yeah, we do.” It didn’t make Harry feel any better. 

 

“Do you...Do you have any idea how to get back?”

 

Harry got up and started to pace. “No...I was in a shuttle, on the way back to Voyager when I must have..gotten transported here somehow.”

 

“What were you doing in the shuttle?”

“Collecting samples. There was nothing out of the ordinary on the sensors that I can remember…”

 

He tried to picture it, the sensors as they had been before he woke up in this apartment.

 

“Harry, when’s the last time you ate?”

 

“Hmm?” He tried to remember. “Yesterday, at Voyager.”

 

“Then let’s get something to eat. You never think as well on an empty stomach.”

 

“How do you kno...I guess that’s the same too.”

 

“Looks like.” Tom stood. “Come on, let’s see if I can replicate us a decent pizza.”

 

At the word “pizza”, Harry’s stomach rumbled. When the pizza was put between them he tore into it.

 

“This is so good! I haven’t had pizza in...months.”

 

“Replicators don’t work on Voyager?” 

 

“They do but we have to ration energy so they’re not the best. We have a Talaxian cook and he...well, he manages interesting rather than edible, let’s say.”

 

Tom laughed before sobering. “So you’re really alive, in dark space?”

 

“We’re in a whole new quadrant of space. The Delta quadrant.”

 

“How? It’d take you...70 years getting there from here.”

 

“It’s a long story.”

 

Tom gestured around him. “We’ve got time.”

 

So Harry told him. About the Caretaker, about the Ocampas, about the Kazon-Ogla and the decision to blow up the Array. When he’d finished, the candle on the table had burnt down low and Tom’s eyes were wide.

 

“So it really will take you 70 years to get back.” 

 

“Yeah,” Harry sighed. “It looks that way.”

 

“That has to feel really lonely. I mean your...Libby, she’s 70,000 lightyears away and you’re stuck on a ship that may not make it back until you’re past ninety.”

 

“It does.” Harry felt loose and warm from the wine Tom had opened. Not synthehol but an actual wine. “Not all the time. I mean you’re...Tom’s there.”

 

“What am I...like? In your universe?”

 

Harry narrowed his eyes as he thought. How did one describe Tom Paris?

 

“He’s...faceted.”

 

“Faceted?” Tom’s face was alive with amusement. “Is that a euphemism for jerk?”

 

“No, it’s...Tom’s my best friend. He’s cocksure, flippant and sometimes careless but he’s also a dedicated officer, caring and protective of others. He seems to always be tugged in two directions, between confidence and self-doubt, highs and lows. It’s probably how life taught him to be. Growing up in an influential, well to do family, descendant of one of the founders of Starfleet, then losing it all and ending up in a penal colony on New Zealand. Then uprooted and plopped down in an artificial environment where he has it all back - until we get home. It has to be hard.”

 

“It sounds like you have a lot of patience for him.”

 

“We’re friends. He doesn’t have many but Tom’ll do anything for the people he cares about. The first thing he did when we met was get me out of a sticky spot. Then he went back to the caretaker with the captain just to make sure I was all right. And that was when we’d just met.”

 

“And you’re sure he just sees you as a friend?”

 

“Yeah. Yeah, I don’t even think that Tom is into men.”

 

The other Tom snorted. “If he’s like me - and he sounds a lot like it - he likes guys too. You could always ask him if his first experience was with Will Latimer as well.”

 

“William Lat...As in Admiral Latimer’s son?”

 

Tom grinned. “Boarding school in Connecticut could get awfully boring. Will and I shared a room and...some interests. One rainy afternoon when we were fifteen we discovered a new common hobby.”

 

Harry couldn’t help laughing. “Tom, you’re incorrigible.” 

 

“I used to be. You’ve got me all straightened out now.” He sobered. “He does, I mean.”

 

“I don’t believe it’s all him.”

 

“No?” Tom smiled into his glass. “And how long is it since the Tom in your world ran into any infractions with the command on Voyager?”

 

“Well...I mean, he calls me his conscience but that’s just a joke.”

 

“Is it?” Tom rose from the couch. “If I were to guess, and I feel I’m pretty capable of guessing in this instance, he’s never had a friend like you and he’ll be damn careful to not mess it up.” He bent over the table to pick up the wine, his face suddenly close, that familiar voice acquiring the velvet timbre that sent shivers down Harry’s spine. “I might be reckless, Harry, but I’m not stupid.”

 

Bringing the bottle, Tom sauntered across the room and opened the window before climbing outside to the roof. A moment later he leaned back in.

 

“Are you coming, or what?”

 

Following, Harry tried to shake the feeling that was sparking in his stomach. A free, joyful, shimmering sensation that he’d found something he’d been looking for. He had a sudden irrational desire to laugh. Blaming the wine, he climbed through the window. 

 

Outside, Tom was lying on a blanket he’d found somewhere, staring up at the sky, his head resting on his hand. 

 

“We like to lie out here and look at the stars. Harry started it when I was posted on the Exie but we’ve been doing it together since.”

 

Harry laid down next to him, staring up at the night sky. “I can see why.” He shifted to get more comfortable. The air was warm and the vague breeze carried a note of Tom’s aftershave with it. It was the one Harry recognised and a small pang stitched in his chest at the sense of it. 

 

“Did you both apply to Voyager?”

 

“Yeah. Harry thought it’d be a good first post, a few weeks in space, on a brand new Intrepid class starship. They needed both a conn officer and an operations officer and I had just left the Exeter.”

 

“Why didn’t he get it? Danny Bird in my universe wasn’t better than I at school or anything.”

 

“He’s not here either. Harry’s problem was that he was too good.” Tom chuckled. “Don’t ask me details cause he’s too smart by half for me to explain it but he thought of something that morning after he came back to mine from the Nebula when he was standing in my shower. Something hit him and he went back home and started pursuing this idea. Three weeks later he’d written a paper on plasma flow equations that got him the Cochrane Award. Starfleet wasn’t going to ship him anywhere when they could use him to make his paper a reality.”

 

“So...he’s in the Engineering Corps cause of that paper solving the dilithium fracture problem?”

 

“That’s right. And if the grapevine speaks true, he’ll be offered a post as Chief Engineer anywhere he likes to test out the new technology when it goes live.”

 

“Wow,” Harry breathed. “Chief Engineer? From Ensign?”

 

“What can I say, I have good taste.”

 

“It seems he does too, Commander.” 

 

“You mean…?”

 

“Tom’s a field lieutenant.”

 

The other man shook his head. Sighed lightly. “Like I needed any more proof.” 

 

It sounded like he was talking to himself but Harry couldn’t help asking. “What do you mean?”

 

“It’s not like I needed anymore proof that Harry changed my life for the better, yet there it is. One me is a convicted criminal on virtual parole and not your boyfriend. The other is about to marry you as First on the Lexington.”

 

“First?” Harry rose to his elbow. “Tom, that’s fantastic! You’ll be one of the youngest First officers in Starfleet!”

 

“It’s only because I want you to be able to call me Captain in bed soon,” he laughed. “Sorry, him. Him to call me that.” He sobered.

 

Harry pushed up completely to sit, wrapping his arms around his knees. The good feeling was dissipating. 

 

“This has to be really hard for you. To..I...I never meant to…”

 

“Hey,” Tom sat up, putting a hand to his back. “Hey, it’s okay. It’s not your fault. We’ll find a way to work this out. You’ll get back to your universe and Harry - my one - will get back here. Everything is going to be okay.” 

 

He was stroking gentle circles and despite knowing it wasn’t his Tom, Harry felt his body react to the touch. Intuitively, the other man stopped when he tensed. Pulled his hand back. 

 

“We’re...you’re not touchy-feely in your timeline, I guess?”

 

“No, it’s not that, it’s…” He felt so comfortable here, so safe. Thoughts he hadn’t dared voice to himself wanted to slip out into the light, spoken aloud. He leaned his forehead against his knees, mumbled. “It’s hard for me because he is touchy-feely. Just not...just not the way that I…”

 

Behind him, he heard Tom move on the blanket, sitting up next to him and turning to face him. A gentle hand pulled his arm away so he could see Harry’s face. He continued to stare hard into his knees.

 

“Harry, are you...do you have feelings for m...for Tom?”

 

Terrified, his heart beating heavily in his chest he looked up. “I’m in love with him.”

 

Surprised he had been able to say the words, he repeated in wonder, “I’m in love with him.”

 

He laughed bitterly. “That’s just perfect.”

 

“You’re not happy about that?”

 

“I told you, Tom doesn’t see me that way. I’m his friend, his protege, in a way. He sees me as a little kid. Or worse, a little brother. Besides, even if he ever did see me differently, I have Libby.” He pushed to his feet, started pacing. “It’s such a strange place to be. We’re thousands of lightyears from home. I’ll be an old man by the time we get back to the Alpha quadrant but it’s still...I can’t just give up hope that we’ll make it back. I have to believe we’re going to make it. And if we do...I love Libby. Have, since I met her.”

 

Tom’s voice was quiet, sympathetic. “But she’s not there.”

 

“No, she’s not there and I miss her and I know it’s completely weird and unfair but I’m angry with her for not being there? I’m angry with myself for taking the assignment. I haven’t seen her for eight months and I’m forgetting, Tom. I’m forgetting what her hair smells like, what it’s like to sleep next to her. I’m a horrible boyfriend.”

 

“I can tell you for a fact that you’re not, Harry.”

 

“I am.” Miserably, wallowing in it now he could just as well drag all the muck out. “I wanted Tom from the second I saw him. I’d left Libby three days earlier and I saw him in that bar and I wanted him. Wanted him like I’ve never felt it before.”

 

“Harry, you can love someone and still experience attraction for others. It’s normal.”

 

“Maybe. But it didn’t stay just as an attraction. I tried so hard not to, fought it, refused to admit it. But I still fell for him. It’s so stupid. Useless.”

 

“You’re not stupid. You’re anything but.” Tom got to his feet as well. “We don’t decide who we fall for. “ He smiled “I sure as hell never pictured I’d fall in love with a cadet with a talent for engineering and a love for rules and order.”

 

Harry smiled a little at that. “And I never pictured I’d fall for a reckless playboy pilot with a hidden softer side.”

 

“Don’t forget handsome.”

 

“I never do.” Harry turned to see Tom was standing close. “Even when I try.” He had to tip his head back to look up at Tom when they stood this way.

 

A smile that started out wide and flirty sobered into something sadder on the blond man’s features. 

 

“Right back at you.”

 

Harry blinked. Tried to remember exactly what he’d said.

 

“Right.” He moved to put some distance between them. 

 

Tom stopped him.

 

“Why don’t you believe that? I see you and...Harry, you’ve always taken my breath away. There’s just something about the dark, silky hair, those warm eyes, these wide shoulders. I can’t get enough.” His hands had traveled from Harry’s hair, to brush his face, down to his shoulders. “Sometimes I’m afraid I’ll never get enough.”

 

In his chest, Harry’s heart was pounding. He wanted to reach out so badly, to wrap his arms around around Tom and bury his head in the crook of his shoulder. Breathe in and just feel himself surrounded by the other man. 

 

“Sorry.” Tom stepped back. “I forgot again for minute.”

 

“It’s okay.” Harry tried to still his heart, hide how badly his hands were shaking. 

 

Tom took another step back. “Should we go back inside?”

 

Climbing back in, they started settling down for the night and Tom insisted Harry took the bed.

 

“You need the sleep more, you’ve had an exhausting day. Or days. Depending on when you got lost and entered the timeline.”

 

Eventually Harry agreed. So he laid in the bed his double shared with his Tom and stared out into the dark. He could hear Tom breathing quietly from the couch. 

 

He didn’t know if it had been minutes or hours when Tom rose and padded over. Without comment Harry slid over held the covers up in invitation. The blonde man laid down, settling into the bed.

 

“I miss him,” he said into the dark and strangely, Harry felt the same. Despite this Tom loving him, despite him being more mature, easily affectionate and trusting, he missed the other Tom, the real one. His Tom.

 

o.O.o

 

When Harry woke he was sleeping on his back, Tom’s head resting on his shoulder. The soft blonde hair was tickingling his neck. For a moment he didn't want to move. He just wanted to stay in this bed with Tom forever.

 

Pushing the urge down, he shifted. Tom woke slowly and rolled away with a mumbled “sorry.”

 

Sitting up, the idea sprang into his head like he’d turned the light on in a dark room. 

 

“I have an idea.”

 

“Hmm?”

 

Clearly Tom Paris was not a morning person in any universe.

 

“I must've come up with it while I slept. What if we recreate the conditions of what I was doing before I got here in a computer sim? It’ll show any anomalies and if you helped with the flying we could maybe figure how the timeline shift happened.”

 

During his explanation Tom had opened his eyes, blinked against the light, frowned. But now he was awake, staring at him. 

 

“I guess it’s worth a try. But I’m not flying anything until I’ve had coffee.”

 

“I’ll replicate some.” Harry got out of the bed.

 

“Not that stuff, it’s awful. Could you get some to go from Cosimo? I’ll go and grab a shower.”

 

“Okay.” He pulled on his uniform as Tom staggered off to the bathroom. 

 

Heading downstairs, he found Cosimo outside his coffee bar. 

 

“Harry! Good morning. What can I get you?”

 

“Ah...our usual?” If he’d been coming for eight months, there hopefully was one.

 

“Certainly, a Vulcan mocha for you and double espresso for Tom. Coming up. Is he coming down or are you bringing it with you?”

 

“To go, please.”

 

“Right away.”

 

He returned a few minutes later with two cups. 

 

“Harry, before you go, could I just have a minute?”

 

“What is it, Cosimo?”

 

“See, that’s the thing. I’m not Cosimo. Well, I am, but I don’t really belong here.”

“What do you mean?”

 

“I mean, I was sent here purely to keep an eye on you.”

 

“Here being…?”

“This timeline. We had no idea such a complete one could form.”

 

“You’ve lost me...you...you created the timeline?”

 

“Not really. We live in a temporal inversion fold in the time space matrix. You wouldn’t really understand it. In any case, your shuttle intercepted one of our timestreams and...boom. A few things were altered because if the accident.”

 

“A few things? I’m 70,000 lightyears from Voyager and I’m about to marry Tom Paris! That’s more than a few things.”

 

“It’s not so bad here, is it?” Cosimo grinned.

 

“How do I get back?”

 

“Get back? We don’t know.” Cosimo looked surprised.

 

“But I have to get back.”

 

“Why? You have a good job, a man you love, you’re not lost in the Delta quadrant. You could have a good life here, Harry.”

 

For a moment, Tom’s face as it had looked the night before flashed in his mind. The open, vulnerable, yearning look in his eyes.

 

“It’s not my life, it’s the other Harry’s life. It wouldn’t be right.”

 

“There is no other Harry. This timeline was created by accident. There was nothing here before you crossed the time stream.”

 

“You...you mean, if I go back it...it stops existing? Harry won’t come back? There’ll be nothing?”

 

Something cold pierced his heart, made ice spread through his blood.

 

“Yes, that’s what I mean.”

 

“But Tom…” Harry swallowed. “He loves Harry. His Harry.”

 

“His Harry, the other Harry. You’re both Harry, there’s really no difference. The memory of “his” Harry was as momentarily created as this entire timestream. Like he was.”

 

“That’s horrible. How could you let that happen? How could you let him have all that and then just take it away?”

 

“I’m not taking it away. Right now, you are. If you stay here, he’ll have his Harry.”

 

“I can’t!” Images of what would happen if he stayed flashed unbidden in his mind. Tom, smiling at him when he came home, wrapping his arms around Harry when he slept, holding his hand in a simple gesture that said more than words. He’d seen all those images in his mind before, just not with an opportunity to make them real. “I...I don’t belong here.”

 

“You could. This is your timeline, created by one random discrepancy in what you think of as your past.”

 

“I met Tom before Libby.”

 

“Yes, and this is what would have happened if you had met him then. There is no other Harry, no other Tom. When you leave, that discrepancy disappears like it never was.”

 

“But I…” Harry hesitated again. Then he thought of the Tom that he knew. The reckless, mercurial, charming, infuriating Tom Paris from Voyager. “I have to go back. This isn’t right.”

 

Not only was it not right but it warred with Harry’s innate principles. He hadn’t worked for this relationship with this Tom, it had been handed to him, finished and perfect. Harry wanted to work for what he had, build it up and then enjoy it. This felt like being given a model set where the model was already built, flawless and perfect, but not something you’d built with your own hands.

 

“You have to tell me how to get back.”

 

Cosimo sighed, held up his hands and let them fall. “Humans. I’ll never understand your race.”

 

Then he explained what Harry would have to do. 

 

Harry returned to the apartment with the now cooled coffee. Entering, he called,

 

“Tom, how long are you going to shower? I’ve…” he trailed off as he spotted Tom on the couch. He was indeed freshly showered and dressed. On either side of him stood a Starfleet security officer.

 

“Hi Harry. Welcome back.” Tom’s voice was tense. “These...gentlemen would like you to go with them.”

 

“Harry Kim, we have a warrant for your arrest for accessing restricted Starfleet files.”

 

The Voyager clearance! It had to have triggered security somewhere. He hadn’t even thought of that, it was his access. 

 

He did think of running, he did. For a moment. But it wasn’t in his nature. Lying to Starfleet wasn’t an option. So he nodded.

 

“Okay.”

 

“Harry?” Tom questioned.

 

“It’s okay. I’ll be fine. I’ll just tell them what I told you.” He looked up from Tom to meet the cold stare of one of the officers. “It’s the truth.”

 

“Hold out your hands, Ensign.” He held out a pair of plasma handcuffs. 

 

Tom rose, cutting him off. “There’s really no need for that. He’s going with you willingly.”

 

He stood between them, tall and straightbacked. Harry couldn’t see his eyes but he heard the underlying tone of command. Pride washed over him. Tom really was commanding material. He’d always known it.

 

The officer stared at him for a long moment. Then he dropped his eyes. “Very well, sir.”

 

“Good. And I’m coming with you. I’ve heard Ensign Kim’s explanation and I can be a witness.”

 

The officers didn’t look pleased but they also didn’t refuse. So they all went. 

 

o.O.o

 

When Harry returned, he felt numb. He knew people like Tom and the Maquis felt - or had felt - that Starfleet was a large, bureaucratic, unfeeling machine. To Harry it had always been a symbol, a name for something that was right and just and that he believed in. It was proof that cooperation, understanding and the pursuit of knowledge were the hallmarks of humanity. He’d always felt at home with its rituals and procedures, been proud of wearing the uniform. For someone to whom the Starfleet insignia had always signified hope and purpose, it was hard to understand how Tom and the Maquis could hate it. 

 

Now he’d had a glimpse of why. No one had been willing to listen, he’d been treated like some kind of terrorist since he arrived. Not one person had actively listened to his story, they’d just kept asking him about his ties to the Maquis. 

 

He shook his head to himself. If Starfleet didn’t want to listen, he’d have to go about it another way. 

 

Returning once again to the apartment, Tom looked up from pacing when he entered.

 

“Harry!” Crossing the room in what seemed like three steps, he’d wrapped him in his arms a moment later. Holding him tight, Harry felt the long, lean body pressed to his, the familiar scent of him intensified as his nose was pressed to the crook of Tom’s neck and the heat of his skin seep through his clothes. Somehow the tension that had been building in him dissipated and he drew a deep breath. The sensation of comfort gave way to the stirrings of arousal and he let go of the other man. Tom stepped back slightly but kept his hands on his arms. 

 

“Are you okay? What happened?”

 

“I’m on…” he still couldn’t believe it. “House arrest. Pending further investigation. They think I’m a Maquis spy.”

 

Tom blinked. “They what? How could they even think that? Your record is spotless, you’re working on their new propulsion system, you’re...you, for heaven’s sake!”

 

Harry rubbed his hands over his face. “I don’t know. I just know no one would listen to me. Nobody believes me.”

 

“Hey,” Tom’s voice was gentle, his touch even more so as he moved Harry’s hands from his face, tilting his head up. “I believe you. I believe you and I will do anything you need me to to help.”

 

There it was. It was more openly shown and spoken in a way Harry had never heard the other Tom speak, but the look in his eyes was one he knew. The look that had made him go back to the Caretaker for Harry, the one he’d worn when he went to back to get Chakotay from the crumbling tunnels. The one that said he would do anything for the people he cared for. Or, in Chakotay’s case, those he respected. 

 

“Thank you.” He drew a shuddering breath. “What about you, what did they say?”

 

Tom’s face hardened. “They didn’t want to listen to me either. They thought I was just protecting you by telling them a version of what they called your “cover story”.”

 

“That’s so unfair. You wouldn’t lie to them.”

 

Tom’s eyebrows lifted. “To protect you? Of course I would. I’d do worse than lie, Harry Kim.”

 

Cosimo’s words suddenly echoed in his head. “You could have a good life here, Harry.” He could. He could see it in Tom’s eyes. 

 

His voice shook when he responded. “I might have to ask you to. Cosimo told me how to get back.”

 

And then, standing in the hall, he told Tom the truth. That there was no his Harry, that the timeline had sprung into being when his shuttle had crossed the time stream. This wasn’t a parallel universe, it was a divergence, something that would disappear into the nothingness it had come from once Harry returned - if he could return - to Voyager.

 

Tom’s hands slowly let go of him, before he turned away. Harry couldn’t see his face, couldn’t judge what he was thinking or feeling. For a long time they just stood like that, in silence. Slowly, as if he might startle him, Harry reached out and touched Tom’s shoulder. 

 

“Tom, I’m...I’m really sorry.”

 

“Harry, could you...I...I need some time alone.” With that he crossed the room and disappeared out through the window. 

 

Harry sank down on the couch and waited. He knew from experience hurrying Tom into talking before he was ready to talk was a futile and frustrating process. So he waited.

 

He didn’t know how long it had been when Tom came back inside but he realised he’d fallen asleep when the soft scrape of the window opening woke him. It was dark now and Tom was silhouetted against the stars outside when he climbed back in. Hearing him softly ask for lights, he flickered into full view. He was still wearing his uniform, just a tad less pristine than it had been that morning. His face was calm and his eyes distant, the impression more than ever that of a marble sculpture. Heartbreakingly beautiful but cold and unmoving. The armour was once more in place and Harry hated that this time it was he who had forced Tom into it. Had woken the old coping mechanism he knew so well from the Tom in his reality. 

 

Standing straight and with his voice cool, he asked, “What do you need me to do?”

 

Harry wanted to get up and wrap his arms around Tom until that ice melted. He knew it wasn’t directed at him but was there to shield his friend from the hurts he felt all too keenly. Just as he knew the embrace wouldn’t be welcomed, not now. 

 

“Would you fly me? I need to get back to cross a time stream again.”

 

Tom nodded. Looked away. Then, with apparent force, made himself look at Harry again. 

 

“You’re going to need that taken off.”

 

He nodded to the ankle brace they’d put on him to ensure he remained in house arrest. “It’ll trigger the alarm when we leave here otherwise.”

 

“I know but I have no idea how to take it off without triggering the alarm.”

 

Tom raised an eyebrow, the shadow of his usual cocky smile crossing his features. 

 

“Well, lucky for you, I’ve taken a few of them off in my time.”

 

Picking up a tool kit, he came over and knelt at the floor in front of Harry. Tapping his thigh, he motioned for Harry to put his foot there. Complying, Tom then set to work gently unfastening the mechanism. 

 

“Do I want to know how you got so good at this?”

 

“Let’s just say practice makes perfect.” 

 

Bent over his work, Harry wanted desperately to reach out and run his hand through the soft blond hair, caress the back of Tom’s neck, stroke the tension out of those strong, straight shoulders. But he didn’t. Instead he tried to look at anything but Tom kneeling in front of him. 

 

“There.” The brace parted and Tom put it aside. “All done.”

 

Before he could stand up again, Harry put a hand to his shoulder. “Tom, I want you to know that I...If there was any way to...to get him back, I would do it.”

 

“I know. I know you would. It’s not your fault, Harry.”

 

“It sort of is.”

 

“You didn’t cross those time streams on purpose. I don’t blame you. I just...I have a hard time understanding how this can’t be real when I remember my whole life, remember meeting him. I remember what he smells like, how his eyes look when he laughs, the way he talks in his sleep. It doesn’t seem possible it’s just an...aberration.”

 

“I know,” Harry said quietly. “It has to be...really hard.”

 

Tom didn’t respond. 

 

“And helping me, it...It could cost a lot. You’ll lose your position in Starfleet, they might even kick you out or make you do time.”

 

“Let’s just do this.” He stood. “Not to get all melodramatic on you but without Harry, there’s really not much left for me here.”

 

“It’s not melodramatic.” He reached out again. “It just makes me think you might be the best man I’ve ever met.”

 

“Thank Harry, he’s the one who taught me.” The smile fluttered again, just a little brighter this time. “Now let’s get you back.”

 

Just as he’d said it, the entry system beeped.

 

“Ensign Kim, Commander Paris, please grant entry. Starfleet Security reporting.”

 

Tom frowned and tapped his com badge. “Why?”

 

“We have some further questions for Ensign Kim.”

 

Cancelling the transmission Tom turned to Harry. “We need to go now.”

 

“They’re outside the door, Tom.”

 

“Through the window, Harry.” He chuckled. “Geez, it’s like you’ve never been on the run from Fleeter officers before.”

 

“Ha ha.” Harry managed before they both steered for the window. On the way Tom picked something up from under the bed. Tossing one of the objects to him, Harry caught it.

 

“A phaser?”

 

“It’s set to stun. You never know.”

 

Shrugging, Harry fastened it in the holster at his waist, then he started climbing out the window. 

 

At the other end of the room the door suddenly flung open and two security officers burst in.

 

“Go!” Tom called and pushed him outside. Harry landed clumsily on the roof outside. Tom joined him, more gracefully, and set off at a run, keeping close to the wall. Following him, Harry tried to not hear the running footsteps behind them. Ignoring the calls to stop, they slid down the fire ladder. On the street Tom took a left, out on the bigger street. They’d gotten halfway to the next block when a hand landed on his arm and pulled him back. 

 

Tom must have heard because he whirled around, aiming his phaser. Firing at the man behind him, the security officer fell to the ground, stunned. Racing back, they both struggled with the remaining pursuer. Tearing him off Harry, Tom pushed him away, then followed with a punch. The man fell. Harry blinked at the empty space where he’d stood.

 

“Come on!” Tom pulled him along and they ran for the next block. Skidding into an alley, they stopped for a second to catch their breath. Tom was leaning forward, holding his side and Harry rested against the wall. 

 

“That was...Thank you. Thank you for doing that.”

 

“Anytime.”

 

“You didn’t have to. So thanks.”

 

“Don’t worry about it. Now where are we going to find the ship that I’m going to fly for you?”

 

As soon as he said it, Harry realised where. “Follow me.”

 

o.O.o

 

Taxying out of the hangar, Tom’s hand flew over the controls.

 

“You know, when you said you had a plan, I didn’t think you meant we’d steal a prototype shuttle.”

 

“What’s wrong with a shuttle?”

 

“Poor shields, for one. Little to no weapons, less maneuverability.”

 

“Sorry that our time constraints mean we don’t have time to pick up an Intrepid class starship.”

 

“A nice little stealth hunter class ship would have been just fine.”

 

“I’ll keep that in mind for next time.”

 

“That’s all I ask.” 

 

Clearing the landing pad, they zoomed higher and as always Tom transformed once he was flying. Confident, sure and easy he maneuvered the prototype shuttle into the Sol system. The minutes ticked by in silence, the quiet purr of the engines and the hiss of the air purifier at work all that could be heard. 

 

“We’re nearing the coordinates.”

 

Harry looked up from the console he’d been scanning. 

 

“We are.”

 

“So I guess this is-” Tom was cut off as the shuttle shook, sparks flying from overhead. “We have company.”

 

On the screen Harry could see another blip gaining on them. Reading the information, he gulped.

 

“It’s the Jules Verne.”

 

“Big guns, huh? Guess we’re important.” Another hit sent a shower of sparks and smoke from above. “Damn!” 

 

Tom’s hands flew over the controls, fighting to keep the shuttle on evening keel. 

 

“Harry, I don’t know if we can take another hit. Your shuttle can handle but it’s got no shielding.”

 

“I don’t think it’s meant for battle,” Harry replied through clenched teeth, struggling to reroute power from a damaged conduit. “We’re a minute away from Cosimo’s coordinates.”

 

“A minute? Well, hell if I’m dying a minute away from where I’m going. Hold on.”

 

In quick succession Tom flicked the inertial dampeners off to get direct maneuverability, and then sent them flying into a corkscrewing loop. The shuttle trembled under the stress but the beams from the Jules Verne zoomed by. Harry held onto his armrests, pressed into the seat. 

 

Gaining a moment’s respite from the maneuver, Tom turned the inertial dampeners back on. Turning to Harry, he grinned.

 

“You okay there?”

 

“That was...impressive.” He let go of the armrests. “Terrifying, but impressive.”

 

Tom laughed. “Yeah, it’s not a move they teach at the Academy. But I think it bought us a few seconds.” He stood. “We’re seconds out, we should-”

 

The beeping warning them they were being targeted shrilled. Harry froze. In a matter of seconds they would be blown into smithereens. Before he could think of what to do, Tom had hauled him up from the chair and pushed him into the transporter. 

 

“I love you, Harry. In any universe.” Then he pressed his lips to Harry’s in a hard, desperate kiss. Pulling away again, he said quietly, “Energize.”

 

“Tom, no! Tom!” Harry reached out seeing Tom’s eyes shining and noise of the shuttle breaking apart. Then he saw nothing. 

 

o.O.o

 

“Mr Kim? Mr Kim, can you hear me?”

 

It took him a moment to recognise the captain’s voice. 

 

“Harry?”

 

“Kim here, Captain.”

 

“Mr Kim we’re attempting to lock on to you, we need you to lower your shields.”

 

“Stand by.”

 

He scanned the readings in front of him. Talk about out of the frying pan into the fire. His shuttle was breaking under the stress of the subspace distortions. Then he felt the telltale tingling of being transported.

 

“Mr Kim, are you all right?”

 

Standing in the transporter room he looked around. “I think so.” Except for feeling like he’d lost something vital, like the ability to walk or breathe. “Is To..Lieutenant Paris there?”

 

Janeway’s voice was wondering but she replied, “Yes, he is. Why?”

 

“It’s a long story.” Relief washed through him. He was there, he was alive. 

 

His mind wouldn’t accept it as real until he had seen him and he ran for the bridge. When he entered, Tom spun in his seat. Harry felt some of the strain loosen. He really was here, alive. Crossing the room, he stopped himself a moment away from wrapping Tom in a hug. Instead he put a hand to his shoulder, just to feel he was really there.

 

“What’s up, Harry?” Blue eyes searched his and Harry smiled.

 

“I owe you one.” Owe you everything.

 

“You’ll have to tell me why,” Tom responded with his eyebrow lifted in question.

 

“I will.” 

 

At least one version of it. With his hand still on Tom’s shoulder, he looked out at the rapidly passing stars. Somewhere out there, were a Tom and a Harry who had made it, he had to believe that.

**Author's Note:**

> I have so many ships, and I told my rational self I'd just stick to writing for those. Then I started watching Voyager for the first time. It went something like this:  
> Saw Tom Paris -  
> Brain: Cute. Is it Nick Locarno?  
> Saw Harry Kim  
> Brain: Cutie too.  
> Saw them together for LITERALLY two seconds.  
> Brain: ooooohhh  
> Me: Don't you dare. No.  
> Brain: OoooOOOOooOOOO  
> Me: No, no, no. Tiny ship, twenty year old cancelled show, not an ice cream cone's chance in hell of them ever getting close to canon and-  
> Brain: Too late. I ship.  
> Me: Sigh. I know.
> 
> And that's the story of how I ended up here! I hope you enjoyed my attempt at playing with these characters! C.F.


End file.
